Destructo Machine

Captain Destructo

Al sent the following letter

Some time ago I began to work on the idea of a comic book hero called Captain Destructo. He was a sports car aficionado who gets his vintage MG creamed by a little old lady driving--you got it--an Oldsmobile. Over the twisted wreckage of his postwar TD, he swears anoath of vengeance against bad drivers.

That night, sitting in a cafe, he drowns his sorrows in many glasses of Beaujolais and the tired house red. As his tristesse reachesits zenith, he sobs to his French mechanic (who happens to be in the bistro), "She's gone...my God. Really gone..." "Forget her, monsieur, sheeez not worth it."

As the vision of his MG blurs beneath his tears, he asks Berri, the mechanic, "Berri, what car out of all the cars around would be indestructible?" The little Frenchman screws up his face and thinks. "Indestructible, like how, monsieur?" he asks. "In a way that I can exact my revenge on these tinny pieces of Japanese and Mexican boredom! I wish to avenge myself on this hordethat drives but never motors! What car Berri, what!?"

What car would be your choice?

The ultimate "destructo machine" we decided, was the Hudson Hornet.

The comic book never made it out of the garage because I don't wish toadvocate "road rage," but it had a few interesting subplots, like Captain Destructo following a rude driver to his final destination and persuading his mechanic to disassemble the drive train of the offending vehicle (if it was a minor bit of rudeness), or simply side-swiping the car with his dark gray Hudson...and reducing the '90s autos to rubble before their eyes. He also left signed cards on the windshield that said, "In the future, speak well of driving enthusiasts!" or "My mechanic entered a fatal flaw in your car's fuel-mixture-adjusting module. This is because you cut off that little old lady with the blue hair on the parkway this afternoon. I shall be watching to make certain your rude driving habits change. If not, we will 'adjust' a more critical component."